Following that cold, windy trip to Ames, Iowa on Sunday, Michigan is welcomed in San Juan.

And vice-versa.

The 14th-ranked Wolverines (2-1) open play in the Puerto Rico Tip-Off on Thursday against Long Beach State (1-3) -- a program with three straight Big West regular-season titles and a coach with a pedigree.

Whichever team wins heads to a Friday semifinal against either No. 10 VCU or Florida State.

Of Michigan’s 13 scholarship players, only senior forward Jordan Morgan and junior forward Jon Horford have played in a tournament similar to this -- the 2011 Maui Invitational. With three freshmen and five sophomores on scholarship, U-M ranks as the 11th-youngest team in the country by experience.

“It is going to be something new for them, but I think it speeds the learning curve even in victory or defeat,” coach John Beilein said.

Playing three games in four days (Saturday is an off day) is nothing new. Between the experience of high school tournaments and AAU play, the freshmen will keep their legs.

There are, though, some oddities of these in-season, island-hopping tournaments that can’t be replicated. Highly meaningful games will be played in mostly empty Coliseo Roberto Clemente (capacity 10,000) -- no bands, no students, no atmosphere. Beilein will be dressed like a cruise ship carouser instead of his typical high school math teacher ensemble. Time off the court is spent in resorts with tempting distractions.

But every team in the tournament (the other side of the bracket consists of Georgetown, Kansas State, Charlotte and Northeastern) combats those peculiarities.

Long Beach presents an interesting test. Not your average mid-major program, the 49ers annually play one of the most severe non-conference schedules in the nation. They are 2-9 against ranked opponents since 2010-11 under seventh-year head coach Dan Monson, the same coach who led Gonzaga to within a whisper of the 1999 Final Four.

Monson went 7-4 against Michigan as Minnesota head coach before being fired in 2006-07, seven games into his seventh season with the Gophers.

Monson and Long Beach are coming off an NCAA tournament appearance in 2012 and NIT berths in 2011 and 2013. This season the 49ers struggled to score against Arizona (57 points) and Kansas State (58), and are, all told, shooting 44.8 percent from the field. They fire at will from deep and, if they’re falling, can hang with a team of Michigan’s caliber. Against Arizona and K-State, Long Beach combined to shoot 11 of 44 (25.0 percent) from deep and was blown out.

“I don’t think those two scores are indicative of who they are,” Beilein said. “They’ve got back-to-back-to-back Big West championships, so they’ve got that culture in place.”

The 49ers are led by junior forward Dan Jennings, a transfer from West Virginia, who is averaging 14.5 points and 12.0 rebounds, and junior guard Mike Caffey, who Beilein called, “A volume shooter that we need to keep from being a volume maker.”

Caffey is averaging 16.3 points on 13.3 field-goal attempts per game.

Between Michigan and Long Beach, these are two teams that took inconvenient paths to Puerto Rico.

Beilein’s boys flew from Ann Arbor to Ames, Iowa on Saturday, then back to Ann Arbor on Sunday night, to Atlanta on Tuesday night, and to San Juan on Wednesday morning.

Monson’s men flew from Southern California to Manhattan, Kan., for a Saturday game, only to then travel here to San Juan.

It’s another oddity of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off and tournaments like it.

The notable dynamic of this tournament is Michigan has the chance of playing Long Beach State, VCU and Georgetown over a four-day span. That’s a lot of NCAA tournament implications transpiring 1,950 miles from campus in an empty gym named after a Puerto Rican baseball player.

But really, that’s also the beauty of these tournaments.

“Over these three games I think you’ll get a real indication -- a benchmark -- of where you are right now,” Beilein said. “It will tell you a lot about your team’s toughness, your resiliency, your talent level . A lot comes out of these … ”